Babe

“Where were you born?"
"On a battlefield," [Yossarian] answered.
"No, no. In what state were you born?"
"In a state of innocence.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“After all, what is a liver? My father, for example, died of cancer of the liver and was never sick a day in his life up till the moment it killed him. Never felt a twinge of pain. In a way, that was too bad, since I hated my father. Lust for my mother, you know.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“Tell me now, fairy as you are - can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"
"It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather, your sternness has a power beyond beauty."
Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think too good for common purpose: it was the real sunshine of feeling - he shed it over me now.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre